Animalia

Title:

Animalia

Uniform Title:

Règne animal. English

Author:

Del Amo, Jean-Baptiste, author.

Added Author:

Wynne, Frank,

Personal Author:

Del Amo, Jean-Baptiste, author.

ISBN:

9780802147578

Edition:

First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition.

Physical Description:

371 pages ; 23 cm

General Note:

"Originally published in French in 2016 as Règne animal by Éditions Gallimard"--Title page verso.

Abstract:

"The small village of Puy-Larroque, southwest France, 1898. Éléonore is a child living with her father, a pig farmer whose terminal illness leaves him unable to work, and her God-fearing mother, who runs both farm and family with an iron hand. Éléonore passes her childhood with little heat and no running water, sharing a small room with her cousin Marcel, who does most of the physical labor on the farm. When World War I breaks out and the village empties, Éléonore gets a taste of the changes that will transform her world as the twentieth century rolls on. As the reader moves into the second part of the novel, which takes place in the 1980s, the untamed world of Puy-Larroque seems gone forever. Now, Éléonore has herself aged into the role of matriarch, and the family is running a large industrial pig farm, where thousands of pigs churn daily through cycles of birth, growth, and death. Moments of sublime beauty and powerful emotion mix with the thoughtless brutality waged against animals, making the old horrors of death and disease seem like simpler times. Recalling the naturalism of classic French writers like Émile Zola, brilliantly translated by Frank Wynne, Animalia traverses the twentieth century as it examines man's quest to conquer nature, critiques the legacy of modernity and the transmission of violence from one generation to the next, and questions whether we can hold out hope for redemption in this brutal world"-- Provided by publisher.

Subject Term:

Families -- France -- Fiction.

Farms -- France -- Fiction.

Human-animal relationships -- Fiction.

Swine -- France -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

France -- Fiction.

Genre:

Historical fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... East End	Book	FICTION DELAMO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Main Library	Book	FICTION DELAMO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... West End	Book	FICTION DELAMO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Westover Hills	Book	FICTION DELAMO	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

A prizewinning and word of mouth literary sensation in France, Animalia is an extraordinary epic that retraces the history of a modest French peasant family over the twentieth century as they develop their small plot of land into an industrial pig farm, a visceral, chilling tale of man and beast

The small village of Puy-Larroque, southwest France, 1898. Ã%lÃ©onore is a child living with her father, a pig farmer whose terminal illness leaves him unable to work, and her God-fearing mother, who runs both farm and family with an iron hand. Ã%lÃ©onore passes her childhood with little heat and no running water, sharing a small room with her cousin Marcel, who does most of the physical labor on the farm. When World War I breaks out and the village empties, Ã%lÃ©onore gets a taste of the changes that will transform her world as the twentieth-century rolls on. As the reader moves into the second part of the novel, which takes place in the 1980s, the untamed world of Puy-Larroque seems gone forever. Now, Ã%lÃ©onore has herself aged into the role of matriarch, and the family is running a large industrial pig farm, where thousands of pigs churn daily through cycles of birth, growth, and death. Moments of sublime beauty and powerful emotion mix with the thoughtless brutality waged against animals that makes the old horrors of death and disease seem like simpler times.

A dramatic and chilling tale of man and beast that recalls the naturalism of writers like Ã%mile Zola, Animalia traverses the twentieth century as it examines man's quest to conquer nature, critiques the legacy of modernity and the transmission of violence from one generation to the next, and questions whether we can hold out hope for redemption in this brutal world.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

Carnivores beware. Human and animal misery are evoked in unsparing detail in a dark saga of ruinous husbandry practices.This first novel to appear in English from a prizewinning French author is not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. Brilliantly, lyrically descriptive whether evoking the natural world or a decaying farmstead, the book traces the terrible evolution of rural ways of life into cruelty and abuse via the history of one unhappy family. Opening in 1898, it evokes peasant existence in Gascony from the perspective of a harshly devout mother, a loving but ill father, and their daughter, lonore. Co-existing alongside their livestock, the trio endures a miserable cycle of poverty and endless labor. Marcel, a cousin, arrives to help with the work until World War I intervenes; Marcel survives but at the price of half his face and one eye. In spite of this, lonore loves him, marries him, and bears his son, Henri. Swooping forward to 1981, the smallholding has enlarged into a pig production unit, a place of pain and torment. The family has grown via Henri's two sons to include a manic depressive mother, a mute grandson, alcoholism, sickness, and despair of multiple kinds. Meanwhile, outside, a herd of pigs is raised in grotesque, appalling conditions. Del Amo spares no detailsindeed overloads the brutish accumulationin this portrait of filth, cruelty, and moral decline. The people suffer, but the animals suffer more, whether in war- or peacetime. Overmedicated, inbred, and turned into industrial units, the pigs produce contaminated waste that fertilizes the fields that grow the grain they eat, creating a virtuous/vicious cycle of excrement and meat. The piggery has become a cradle of barbarism, and it isn't going to end well.Tortured beasts are tended by soul-destroyed keepers in an unstinting portrait of all that's wrong with modern food production. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.